Events, Seasonal and Short-Term

Situation Analysis: Most people think changing a room’s look and feel requires a major renovation, which is both expensive and time-consuming. Ikea wanted to show that a room’s look could be updated by simply adding some textiles: inexpensively, quickly and easily. However, while people loved the idea of textiles, they were overwhelmed by the wide variety of choice: colours, patterns and textures, making them reluctant to refresh their home with new textiles. Ikea wanted to increase textiles sales while increasing visitors to the store by getting people to feel confident and comfortable “renovating” with textiles from Ikea.

Insight & Strategy: In-depth qualitative groups and a deep digital scrape of multiple online décor sites revealed that, although people responded to textiles passionately and excitedly, they lacked the confidence, courage and know-how to make a commitment to purchase, not helped by the constant reminders of the fabric rules to be followed. However, people could be freed from the tyranny of textile rules if encouraged to continually experiment. When it came to textiles, the tactile experience was very important as it helped override the “rules” and rational concerns, therefore hands-on participation with textiles had to be an element of the communication mix.

Research also showed that the textiles purchase journey has discrete steps with multiple entry and exit points over the course of the journey, but all could be effectively collapsed into one of two critical steps: “Internal Inspiration” and “Making it Real.” In addition to mitigating people’s fear of fabric, there also needed to be a top-of-mind association between Ikea and textiles, which had not been the case previously.

Execution: The creative idea of Ikea’s “Quick & Easy Room Makeover,” showing how little changes could make a big difference, ran during May 2014 across three main communication channels. For television, the “Quick & Easy Room Makeover Show,” a series of two-minute episodes aired on HGTV, showed real couples working with a well-known designer to transform their rooms in minutes with IKEA textiles.

For OOH, street-level boards that allowed people to touch and feel actual textiles were employed, with life-sized textile samples that could be taken and tried out at home. With digital, an online tool communicated via a YouTube masthead taught people how to “renovate” a room in seconds using only textiles, showcasing the range of Ikea textiles and highlighting the impact just a few items could add.

Results: Textile sales increased by 11% compared to the previous year during May to June 2014, while store visitor numbers increased by 10%. In addition, people adding more textiles to their home furnishings increased the average basket size by 5% during the period.

Cause & Effect: The Ikea promotional calendar remained unchanged from the previous year, there were no new products or news, no increase in spend or activity and pricing remained unchanged. This was the first big communication effort that Ikea had put behind the textile category.

Credits:
Client: Ikea Canada
Country marketing manager: Hilary Lloyd
Advertising manager: Kirsten Ryan
Advertising specialist: Jonelle Ricketts
Agency: Leo Burnett
CCO: Judy John
Group CDs: Morgan Kurchak, David Federico
CWs: Matt Williamson, Jon Murray
AD: Andrew Hart
Designers: Trevor Bell, Sean Perkins
Flash developers: Chad Elston, Kavin Wong
Web developer: Margaret Beck
Director, creative technology: Felix Wardene
Digital project manager: Thomas Degez
Assistant account executive: Merwyn Xavier
Account supervisor: Danielle Iozzo
Group account director: Natasha Dagenais
Planner, director: Dustin Rideout
Strategic planner: Lisa Hart
Social media planners: Heather Morrison, Michael McDonald-Beraskow
VP, media connection planning: Brooke Leland
Media broadcast planner: Krystal Seymour
Media non-broadcast planner: Janet Xi
Media agency: Jungle Media